UPDATE: Voting is now over. Click here for the results.
As our weeklong tournament comes to a close, it’s going to be Google’s Larry Page against T-Mobile’s John Legere for the final spot as the most powerful executive in the U.S. telecom industry. Voting in this final round will remain open through the weekend, and we’ll announce the winner on Monday morning.
So which executive will you vote for? There are strong arguments for each:
Page founded Google in the late 1990s with Sergey Brin, and today he stands as the CEO of Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc. In his position, Page helps oversee Google’s wide-ranging businesses that stretch from its core internet search service to its Android operating system to its YouTube video site. For the U.S. telecommunications industry specifically, Page’s Google is currently supplying one of the hottest phones on the market, the Pixel, which naturally runs Google’s open source Android operating system – the world’s most popular smartphone OS. The company has also upended the relatively staid market for fiber-based internet with its Google Fiber buildout, and despite the company’s fiber challenges, Google Fiber has been cited as a major driver of increased competition in the space. Further, YouTube continues to general a substantial amount of video traffic over wireless and wireline networks, and the service increasingly competes directly with video options from service providers ranging from Comcast to Verizon to AT&T’s DirecTV Now. The combination of all of these business efforts represents a strong argument for a vote for Page.
On the other hand, since joining the company in 2012, Legere has managed to rekindle T-Mobile’s momentum in the wireless industry with a series of new service offerings and pricing efforts. Indeed, before Legere’s “uncarrier” push at T-Mobile, two-year service contracts were the norm, international roaming was prohibitively expensive, and early termination fees were de rigueur. Today, largely due to initiatives by Legere’s T-Mobile that have been adopted by its rivals, wireless shoppers purchase their phones through no-interest financing and in some cases can watch streaming video without digging into their monthly buckets of data. And, importantly, T-Mobile’s financials have remained solid throughout Legere’s tenure – all of which establishes a compelling argument for a vote for Legere.
As in previous rounds, we’re using Polldaddy.com for the actual voting, and repeated voting is prohibited with a block to cookies and IP addresses. The tournament bracket is below, and below that is the actual matchup you can vote on.
To see the results from previous rounds, click here, here, here and here. We hope you’ve enjoyed this tournament, and don’t hesitate to let us know what you think. – Mike | @mikeddano